Turkey was ranked 45th in the 2023-2024 Human Development Index published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) released on Wednesday, the Stockholm Center for Freedom reported.
The Human Development Index (HDI), published annually by UNDP, measures a nation’s health, education and standard of living. A country scores a higher level of HDI when the lifespan is higher, the education level is higher and the gross national income GNI (PPP) per capita is higher.
According to the report, Turkey had a human development classification of “very high,” scoring 0.855 in 2022.
The HDI is expressed as a figure ranging from 0 to 1. Categories are assigned to each country accordingly: “Low Human Development” (0-0.55), “Medium Human Development” (0.55-0.69), “High Human Development” (0.7-0.79) and “Very High Human Development” (0.8-1).
Between 1990 and 2022, Turkey’s HDI value changed from 0.598 to 0.855, a 43 percent increase.
UNDP Turkey Resident Representative Louisa Vinton said the country bounced back vigorously from the pandemic setbacks.
“But this encouraging progress is overshadowed by resurgent inequality that threatens millions of people around the world with the risk of being left behind.”
While Turkey’s scores improved across all three dimensions of the HDI, the ranking slips to 66th of 166 countries in the inequality-adjusted HDI, due to the inequalities between men and women.
The UNDP also said the ranking does not reflect the impact of the February 2023 earthquakes as it is based on national statistics reported in 2022.
Although there has been an improvement in Turkey’s ratings in the HDI, Turks have found it difficult over the past several years to make ends meet. The country is experiencing a record level of inflation and a record drop in purchasing power due to the depreciation of the lira against foreign currencies.